Thursday, July 11, 2013

Several employees are said to have left Al Jazeera, which is headquartered
in Doha.

(File photo: Reuters)

As many as 22 Al Jazeera employees have quit since the overthrow of Mohammad
Mursi, amid concern over the channel’s alleged bias towards the Muslim
Brotherhood and its coverage of Egypt.

Criticism over the channel’s editorial line, the way it covered events in
Egypt, and allegations that journalists were instructed to favor the Brotherhood
are said to be the main reasons behind the mass resignations.
As many as 22 Al Jazeera staff resigned on Monday, Gulf
News reported, but other media said only seven had left the
broadcaster.
Al Jazeera correspondent Haggag Salama resigned accusing the station of
“airing lies and misleading viewers”, Gulf News reported. The newspaper also
said that four Egyptian members of editorial staff at the network’s headquarters
in Doha had resigned in protest.
Al Jazeera anchor Karem Mahmoud said he left because of the channel’s
editorial line over recent events in Egypt.“I felt that there were errors in the way the coverage was done, especially
that now in Egypt we are going through a critical phase that requires a lot of
auditing in terms of what gets broadcasted,” Mahmoud told Al Arabiya. “My
colleagues have also resigned for the same reason.”
Mahmoud told Gulf News he left because of Al Jazeera’s “biased coverage”, but
said that some local Egyptian stations were worse.
“I am not satisfied with the performance of local news channels in comparison
to Al Jazeera due to their incompliance to neutrality,” he said. “Although I
have left, I still carry a lot of respect for Al Jazeera and believe that they
will remain one of the most respectful news channels.”
Al Jazeera today confirmed some staff had left its Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr
operation...
Some commentators have criticized Al Jazeera as favoring the Muslim
Brotherhood in its coverage of events in Egypt.Author and journalist Abdel Latif el-Menawy, who was head of the Egypt News
Center under ex-president Hosni Mubarak, said that Al Jazeera was a “propaganda
channel” for the Muslim Brotherhood.“Al Jazeera turned itself into a channel for the Muslim Brotherhood group,”
el-Menawy told Al Arabiya. “They are far away from being professional. When the
Muslim Brotherhood collapsed, they continued to play the role.”
He said Al Jazeera gave undue prominence to certain events after Mursi was
overthrown, including hours of airtime for “the Muslim Brotherhood to attack and
make comments.”
El-Menawy said he “saluted” those journalists who left the channel.
“It’s a good thing to do, because they couldn’t accept what is going on,” he
said. “People thought it was the voice of the revolution. And I think people
were shocked to discover it was not.”...

RUDY Giuliani, New York's mayor during the 2011 terror attacks, said US "political correctness" may have contributed to failures in stopping Islamist extremists like the accused Boston bombers.

Speaking before suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appeared in court to face charges connected to the deadly Boston Marathon bombings, Mr Giuliani said failure to recognise the persistent Islamist threat leaves the United States in a "very, very dangerous state of denial."
"You can't fight an enemy you don't acknowledge," Mr Giuliani told a House panel, warning that the United States is failing to directly address the nature of the threat."In order to confront this threat effectively, we have to purge ourselves of the practice of political correctness when it goes so far that it interferes with our rational and intellectually honest analysis of the identifying characteristics that help us to discover these killers in advance."
Some Republican lawmakers say President Barack Obama has sought to avoid blaming extremist threats to America on religious zealotry.
They believe the administration has wrongfully toned down the nature of the threat, including from homegrown extremism fueled by jihadist rhetoric, and warn that attacks such as the 2009 Fort Hood massacre in which a US Army psychiatrist shot dead 13 people should be identified as an Islamist-driven terrorist attack.
Mr Giuliani...pointed to US failures to connect the dots about the Tsarnaevs, two ethnic Chechen Muslim brothers living in the US northeast."There would have been a much greater chance of preventing Fort Hood and possibly... the Boston bombings if the relevant bureaucracies had been less reluctant to identify the eventual killers as potential Islamic extremist terrorists."
He said "the fear of incorrectly identifying (Tamerlan) Tsarnaev as a suspected Muslim extremist might have played a role in not taking all the steps that seemed prudent given his suspicious behavior," including monitoring him more closely when he returned from Boston to Russia, where authorities believe he may have met with underground extremist groups.
The ex-mayor's testimony comes as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appears in court for the first time since his arrest for the April bombings that killed three people.
...Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee where Giuliani testified, said US security forces dropped the ball on the Tsarnaevs.
"We did not see it coming," he said of the Boston attack, adding that poor information sharing was partly to blame. The FBI in particular investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev but did not reopen his case after he returned from abroad.Mr McCaul also warned that the Obama administration was seeking to return to a pre-9/11 approach to combatting terrorism -- a policy Mr McCaul said is perpetuated by its misguided "narrative that the conflict with radical Islamists is ending."

A key factor underlying the unrest in Egypt in recent years and driving the protests that led to the ouster of President Morsi, is the erosion of food security. In Egypt there is a close correlation between food insecurity and political turmoil.

In 2011, the World Food Program (WFP) estimated that 17 per cent of the population were food insecure. The current rate is probably well above the 2011 level.

There are three fundamental drivers behind the rise in Egypt’s food insecurity: increasing resource scarcity, the corrupt and unsustainable food subsidy system, and the rapidly deteriorating economic environment.

Ongoing political instability exacerbates the economic challenges facing Egypt. It creates a socio-political climate unconducive to the implementation of the reforms necessary to improve food security.

Under current conditions, vulnerability to food insecurity will continue to spread through the population. Without a return to stability and the implementation of major reforms, Egypt will face a high risk of food crises in the coming decades.

Summary
There is a close correlation in Egypt between political stability, the economic climate and the state of food security, because of the population’s considerable reliance on state subsidised staple foods. Egypt has a history of bread riots and subsidised bread has been an important part of successive Egyptian governments’ strategies for maintaining social stability, since violent protests erupted over reductions in food subsidies in 1977.
In recent years, poor access to supplies of staple foods and increasing prices led to riots in 2008 and were a contributing cause of the political revolution in 2011. A report by the World Food Program shows that an estimated 13.7 million Egyptians (17 per cent of the population) were suffering from food insecurity in 2011, an increase of 3 per cent since 2009. The data, which also shows 15 per cent of the population moving into poverty over the same period, probably understates the severity of the situation. The past two years have seen a serious deterioration in the Egyptian economy, rising unemployment and further increases in poverty. These factors make it likely that a far larger portion of the Egyptian population is currently experiencing food insecurity.
Widespread food insecurity is a driving factor in creating a disaffected population ripe for rebellion; this was seen when millions of Egyptians took to the streets on the 30 June to end President Morsi’s rule. While the desire for an economic situation more conducive to food security was a primary motivator for the protestors, the ouster of Morsi will have little positive impact on either the short- or long-term food security of the country.

The removal of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power is neither a quick-fix nor a long-term solution to the food security problems confronting Egypt. The current level of food insecurity is not a result of the policies of Morsi’s government, but of resource constraints, structural problems in the Egyptian economy and a succession of crises, including the avian influenza epidemic in 2006 and the food, fuel and financial crises of 2007-09. Morsi was ineffective in addressing the fundamental problems plaguing the country’s food supply; he gave greater priority to the consolidation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s power, than to crucial reforms. A continuation of his divisive rule would not have served to ease the food crisis, but the uncertainty created by his removal will further delay progress towards a stable food system.Malnutrition is endemic in Egypt; extreme protein deficiency is spreading, in a country where 40 per cent of the adult population is already “stunted” by poor nutrition. The root cause of vulnerability to food insecurity in Egypt is the endemic fluctuation of food prices, combined with limited household incomes (resulting from high unemployment and low wage rates). Egyptian households spend, on average, half of their income on food, making it difficult to adjust budgets in times of high food prices.So far in 2013, Egypt has faced plummeting foreign reserves, an economy in meltdown, intermittent fuel crises and ongoing difficulties in maintaining grain stocks. These occurrences mean that it is likely that well over the estimated 17 per cent of the population are currently experiencing, or are vulnerable to, food insecurity.
Three and a half million people in the greater Cairo area alone are currently experiencing severe poverty and food insecurity. The incidence of infant malnutrition is rising and will lead to permanent physical and mental damage for those afflicted, reducing the productivity of the future labour force. The WFP has estimated that Egypt already loses $3.7 billion each year from the effects of child malnutrition.
The fundamental problems driving Egypt’s growing food insecurity are: natural resource scarcity, a vastly inefficient subsidy system and a crisis of confidence in the Egyptian economy. Population growth is accelerating in Egypt, with the population expected to exceed 100 million by 2030. Ninety-seven per cent of Egypt’s landmass is desert and there is simply not enough arable land to feed the current, let alone the projected, population. The country is also facing challenging water shortages in the coming decades. Egypt’s worsening population/resource mismatch means that it is heavily dependent on imports for its food supplies, exposing it to the vagaries of the global grain market. Egypt imports close to 70 per cent of its food needs and requires significant foreign reserves to finance those purchases. Underlying the persistent issues in the Egyptian political sphere, is the fundamental fact that Egypt is running out of money to pay for its food imports. Dwindling foreign reserves indicate a negative trade balance that is draining central bank resources.
Since the revolution in 2011, fears about political instability have cut foreign investment inflows and obliterated the tourism industry, Egypt’s major cash-source. Import volumes are increasing as domestic food production struggles to keep up with growing demand; consequently, as capital inflows plummet, Egypt is facing a rapidly expanding gap in its finances. This situation, combined with ongoing structural problems, is causing the Egyptian economy to deteriorate rapidly and approach collapse. Throughout the first half of 2013, the fiscal gap has made it difficult for the Egyptian government to maintain its strategic food stores, leading to intermittent shortages and bakers’ protests.
Hastening this decline is the continuation of the government’s fuel and food subsidies, which place an enormous burden on state finances. Egypt’s subsidy system costs roughly US$20 billion each year, close to a third of this for subsidised baladi bread. The food subsidy system is beset with corruption, with losses estimated at 30 per cent. The system is also poorly targeted; it covers almost 70 per cent of the population, but fails to reach 19 per cent of the most vulnerable households.
Egypt would experience a threefold benefit from restructuring the system: fiscal savings, improved targeting of support to the most vulnerable people, and improved nutrition. The nationwide subsidies are as much a political talisman as an economic aid; to reduce and reform the system would incur a high risk of a major political backlash. Replacing the subsidy system with a targeted safety net and using part of the saved revenue to provide nutritional interventions, is vital to maintaining food security in the long-term. It is unlikely, however, to be seen as feasible in the current political climate, while the proclivity of the Egyptian population to protest remains strong.
Egypt’s newly appointed interim Prime Minister, the former Finance Minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, has acknowledged the challenges associated with implementing painful cuts in the current environment. He said, ‘it is difficult to ask people to sacrifice, particularly after the revolution, where everyone is expecting to get rewards for past experiences.’ Beblawi is a liberal economist and academic, who has been highly critical of Morsi’s economic policy, saying he didn’t have “the guts” to implement the necessary measures. While he has acknowledged that Egypt now needs to “tighten the belt” and “pay a price” for change, the success of subsidy cuts will rely on convincing the public, the majority of whom benefit from the subsidies, that the measures are in their best interests, so as not to incite further rioting from the volatile and divided population.
In addition to drastically reforming the subsidy system and replacing it with nutrition programs and targeted safety nets, a variety of policy reforms are required to improve Egypt’s future food security. Agricultural sector reform is required to modernise traditional farming practices and encourage growth through productivity-led measures, rather than distortionary agricultural subsidies. Strategic grain reserves must be rebuilt and restructuring of the grain purchasing system (GASC) considered.
Against a background of increasing resource scarcity, population control measures should be implemented to address long-term food security issues. Furthermore, Egypt needs to come to terms with the likely reality of a reduced water supply from the Nile in the future and redesign its water management policies accordingly. Employment generating industrial growth is also necessary. All of these measures will require the restoration of confidence in the Egyptian economy and the installation of a cohesive and able government, with a higher degree of public support and social stability.
The scale of the protests to unseat Morsi and the decision of the military to intervene, have underlined the inherent instability of Egypt’s political system. These factors are likely to further alienate the foreign investors required to put the Egyptian economy back on track. Tourism will continue to struggle, as ongoing violence is to be expected from the increasingly sectarian and polarised society. As Egypt struggles to meet a financing gap of up to US$20 billion a year, immediate action is required to put the economy back on track. The problem is that Egypt currently lacks the political strength and coherence or the social stability to implement the necessary major structural reforms, including the essential extensive reform of the subsidy system.
In the meantime, estimates indicate that the economy will require around US$10 billion a year in foreign subsidies to be kept from collapse. The current trickle of fiscal aid from Qatar and Libya, however, is, at best, a stopgap to allow the crippled economy to keep limping along. It is far from sufficient to fund the investment needed to reboot the economy and prevent it from haemorrhaging funds.
One of the positive outcomes of the military intervention is that, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s generals should be able to count on the support of Saudi Arabia. Possessing foreign exchange reserves of approximately Us$630 billion, Riyadh is capable of carrying Egypt for the interim period, while the country continues to transition towards a more stable and investment-conducive political environment. Since the army ousted Morsi last week, Saudi Arabia has approved US$5 billion in loans and aid in support of the economy, Kuwait US$4 billion, and the UAE US$3 billion. These funds will forestall a fiscal collapse and allow the government to maintain grain purchases, which will also prevent a major food supply crisis; however, they are insufficient to provide the economic boost needed to abate the rising unemployment and poverty rates that are undermining food affordability and causing vulnerability to food insecurity to spread.
Given the fundamental structural issues plaguing Egypt’s food supply system, it is unlikely that the change in political power will improve food security for the increasingly hungry population. Rather, the additional uncertainty caused by the breakdown of the democratic process, is likely to prolong Egypt’s economic woes and exacerbate the levels of current and future food insecurity. Investor confidence is needed to restore Egypt’s economy, but this relies on political stability. While the economy continues to deteriorate, rising poverty and unemployment will create further political unrest.Currently, the country seems stuck in a downward spiral; the failing economy is spurring political unrest and ongoing instability further damages investor confidence. The very actions of the protestors agitating for freedom and progress, are forestalling the necessary changes to enable growth and food security. Without a return to stability and a complete reform of the subsidy system, Egypt faces a high risk of a major food crisis.The coming years may see Egypt move from being the middle-income economic powerhouse of the MENA region, to being a country of close to 100 million people unable to meet its basic food needs.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

GENEVA, July 9 -- As a United Nations meeting is right now hearing
live campaign pitches (webcast
link) from the UK, France and other democracies vying for seats on the
world body's Human Rights Council, the Geneva-based non-governmental human
rights group UN Watch revealed its "List of Shame" --
naming some of the world's worst abusers who are also running in the Nov. 2013
election, and expected to win seats:

"This is a recipe for disaster," said UN Watch executive
director Hillel Neuer. "By electing massive abusers of human rights to the
very body charged with protecting them, the UN is about to add more rotten
ingredients into the soup. We should not be surprised by the results."

The council currently includes Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Mauritania,
Venezuela, and many other countries with dismal human rights records.

Recent UNHRC sessions have adopted
Cuban-sponsored resolutions antithetical to human rights, attacked Israel
in one-sided condemnations, and turned a blind eye to abuses by the countries
listed above. Despite some U.S.-led successes, the 47-nation council has not
said a word or convened any urgent meetings to address the massive abuses
recently perpetrated by Turkey and Egypt, or by terrorists in Nigeria and Iraq.
As a rule, China, Cuba, Russia, Zimbabwe, and their friends always get a free
pass.

UN Watch is already working with dissidents and NGOs from China,
Cuba and Russia to oppose those candidacies. UN Watch successfully led
international coalitions of MPs and NGOs to block past bids by Syria and Sudan.
However, most abusers win election. "Politics, not principles, are too
often what rule in UN elections," said Neuer.

"Candidates like Algeria, China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi
Arabia have one thing in common: they systematically violate the human rights
of their own citizens," said Neuer, "and they have consistently voted
the wrong way on UN initiatives to protect the human rights of others. Chad has
child soldiers -- how can it be a candidate?"

"It's not only that these governments are unqualified; they
are the ones who should be in the dock of the accused, not sitting on high as
prosecutor and judge."

"It is an insult to their victims -- and a defeat for the
global cause of human rights -- when the UN allows gross abusers to act as
champions and global judges of human rights," said Neuer.

"When the U.N.'s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes
guarding the henhouse, the world's victims suffer."

Syrian President Bashar Assad is acting on his threats against Israel, but cautiously ... Netanyahu, Ya'alon and Gantz, for their part, are firing rhetorical warning messages in Assad's direction as of late, but are actually conducting themselves with added restraint and caution, without giving up on substance. The result is a tense and fragile calm in the Golan Heights.

Netnayhau, Ya'aalon at border (Photo: Ariel Hermoni)

Assad changed his policy: He decided to stop restraining himself and chose the Golan as an arena in which he can clash with Israel, but in a way that will not require Israel to respond with a blow that will threaten his regime's survival. In early May, heavy machine gun fire emanating from a Syrian position in the border region was directed at an IDF vehicle in Israeli territory. No one was injured in the incident and the damage caused to the vehicle was minimal, but the response was purposely disproportional: A missile destroyed the machine gun position and the soldiers manning in order to warn Syria against additional provocations. For Assad it paid off: He sacrificed three of his army's soldiers but proved he was protecting Syria's honor.

This was just the beginning. On May 15 Hezbollah terrorists in the Golan launched rockets at an IDF position in Mount Hermon. It is safe to assume that they did not have to haul the relatively small launcher – 107 millimeters – and the rockets themselves from Lebanon, but apparently received them from a nearby Syrian outpost.
... Assad and Nasrallah were careful not to get Hezbollah in trouble in Lebanon and used Sunni Palestinian groups that remained loyal to Assad, according to credible information received from war-torn Syria. Hezbollah recruited in Damascus a number of terrorists from Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, who still remember how to launch Katyushas. It was these terrorists who launched two to four rockets toward the rock-strewn slope beneath the IDF outpost on Mount Hermon. There were no injuries or damage on our side.

Video published by Palestinian group firing mortars at Golan

Initially, the IDF believed the incident was the result of stray rebel or Syrian army fire, which has happened on a number of times in the Golan before, but an examination of the rockets' landing sites revealed that the rocket attack was intentional. For the first time in over 30 years, a Syrian president officially authorizes military action against Israel in the Golan and lays the groundwork for such an operation. This does not bode well for the Israeli communities in the Golan....

Syrian rebels (Photo: Reuters)

Three villages are situated one next to the other on the slopes of Mount Hermon: Mazraat Beit Jann, Jubta Al-Hashab and Hader. The population is mixed, but Mazraat Beit Jann, which is mostly Sunni, is a stronghold of the Assad regime. The Syrian army is present there, accompanied by the notorious Shabiha militia, as well, but there is also a group of fighters from Hezbollah's special force. As soon as they arrived from Lebanon they set up in the village a branch of the "Committees for the Protection of the Homeland," a militia that is loyal to Assad whose members are considered even more ruthless than the Shabiha men. The walk around armed, in civilian clothes, but their main weapon is the knife. Their job in Beit Jann, like in other areas of Syria, is to instill terror in the non-combatant citizens so they will refrain from offering assistance and shelter to Sunni rebels.
But this is not all. The majority of the Druze residents of Hader, who are loyal to the regime, occasionally clash with the rebels in Jubta Al-Hashab. The rebels come out on top in most of these clashes due to their greater numbers and the fact that they have more weapons. They are sometimes helped by Druze from Hader who opposes the regime.
This absurd scene is played out before the fearful eyes of Israel's Druze community. No small number of them have already expressed their willingness to cross the border and assist their brethren in the case Assad's regime will indeed final fall. Israeli security sources claim that throughout the Golan and Galilee, within the ranks of the IDF's Druze soldiers and officers, there is no small number of those willing to cross the border and bare arms in case their fellow sect members from Hader or Jabul Druz are face a real existential threat.
... Despite its neutrality and its publically stated policy of non-intervention, Israel has and will continue to have the upper hand in the Golan, and will continue to have its finger on the trigger. Israel's cabinet-approved policy is based on four guiding principles:

1. No military or civilian interference in favor of any one of the sides. Strategically the preference is that Assad's régime will fall, but there is a serious concern that the vacuum left by his ouster will be filled with radical Islamist forces.

2. Israel will not allow Syria's chemical weapons stockpile or its army's advanced military systems from falling into the hands of either Hezbollah or radical Sunni organizations.

3. Israel will responds quickly and fiercely to any attack in the Golan or along the Lebanese border, regardless of whether the initial attack originated from Assad's forces or from the rebels'.

4. Israel will grant humanitarian aid as much as it can and as much as is required. The goal: To foster positive relation and preserve them with the population which will remain in the territory after the fighting is over regardless of who comes out victorious.

Instrumental coexistenceLet us go down one level, from strategy to tactics. At this level, both rebels and the Syrian army are prepared to cooperate with Israel to preserve the quiet in the Golan... a large part of the Sunni rebels active in the Golan have managed to take over small enclaves of forestry terrain and villages near the Israeli border, specifically because they know that the Syrian army is unable to operate tanks and light artillery in the area.
...The rebels do not have anti-tank missiles and the RPG missiles have a range of only 100-200 meters, while the canon of a T-55 tank can destroy a rebel radar position from a kilometer away.
However, according to the armistice agreement between Israel and Syria, the latter's army is not allowed to bring tanks or artillery to the area adjacent to what is called the "purple line" (the armistice lines drawn in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War). Hence, rebels stand with their backs to IDF border outposts, sometimes at a distance of only a dozen odd meters, and are thus relatively protected and can easily launch small raids and attacks on Syrian army positions and checkpoints.
The Syrian army has attempted to disregard the armistice agreement and operates tanks, light artillery and mortars in the area where such activity is verboten. However, Israel was quick to reiterate that it would not accept any such infringement on the two states agreement. IDF tanks have already fired on a Syrian army mortar launcher firing on Syrian rebels within the demilitarized zone. The Syrian army, which still holds the majority of the territory in the Golan, got the hint and has since begun coordinating its movements with Israel through the UN.

Rebels await arms (Photo: MCT)

Thus for example, a month a ago when the Syrian army decided to retake control over the Syrian side of Quneitra crossing – the sole crossing connecting Israel to Syria – after it had fallen into rebel hands, a 10 strong column of tanks began making its way from Old Quneitra to New Quneitra. In the same time a soothing message was passed onto Israel through UNDOF, silently requesting Israel's clearance for such a move. Israel agreed as it has little to no interest in allowing rebels, in this case Sunni radicals, to become their official neighbors and partners in regulating the border. The Syrian army, which gladly received the Israeli response through the UN force, spread its tanks out and successfully overtook the border crossing.
In is worth [remembering] that unlike other radical groups forming the Syrian rebels, the Golan based rebels have yet to receive Saudi and Qatari funded anti-tanks arms. Hence, Assad's forces have been wiping the floor with them. If the rebels were to receive advanced 'concourse' missiles or the anti-tank arms promised to them by the Americans, the Golan balance might just tip in their favor.
Thus the situation in the Golan – in which Israel is coordinating, if not downright cooperating, with both the Syrian army and civilians – came about.
With the Syrian army the coordination is mediated through the UN peacekeeping force in a bid to preserve the armistice between the two states; for the rest there is medical assistance in the form of a field hospital set up by the IDF along the border fence. In extreme cases the IDF chief of staff – and only him – can authorize the transfer of a wounded Syrian civilian to the Ziv Medical Center in Safed. Thus a form of local multiple party coexistence between Israel and the two conflicting sides was born.
This is a situation which all sides enjoy, and there is a chance that the coexistence will bear fruit once the situation in Syria stabilizes.
It is no simple task balancing between the need to deter and the desire not to be pulled into the destructive and violent Syrian hurricane. IDF commanders in the Golan Heights need to maintain their cool while walking a perilous tight rope devoid of any real ability to predict the overall regional developments.
It is true the IDF succeeded in preparing itself and thus placed elite forces along the Golan and built an advanced border fence similar to that built along the Egyptian border. Nonetheless, however, the region's brigade commanders, as well as the newly appointed division commanders, Brigadier General Itzik Turgeman, need to exhibit professional level diplomacy skills combining soft and hard force – to promise the safety of Golan settlements without forgetting Israel's long term interests.

Dozens of members of terrorist groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood have left the Gaza Strip headed to the Sinai Peninsula to fight the Egyptian army...
The terrorists are taking part in the Muslim Brotherhood's struggle against the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. They had been taken part in battles in El-Arish over the weekend and attacked several Egyptian army posts.

The Egyptian army has accelerated efforts to seal smuggling tunnels connecting Gaza and Sinai with 50 tunnels already closed. Nevertheless, a large portion of the tunnels remains active. Last Saturday, a senior Egyptian official held the Islamic Jihad and members of Hamas accountable for inflaming the situation in Sinai.

The official told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that Egyptian authorities have observed the entry of 150 Izz al-Din al-Qassam operatives into Sinai via the tunnels. "They were wearing uniforms associated with the military police before joining Jihadists in Sinai," he said.

Clashes in Cairo

The official added that the army suspects that Palestinians took part in assaults on army posts last Friday.

Cairo violence (Photo: Getty Imagebank)

In addition, Egyptian security sources told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that Muslim Brotherhood officials are overseeing terrorist activity against army and police forces in Sinai and coordinating these efforts with commanders in Hamas' military wing....

From Eurasia Review, July 9, 2013:Just two days after the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, the new interim government in Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip indefinitely, and Nilesat – an Egyptian company that controls a number of Egyptian communications satellites – removed Hamas TV, Al-Quds, from the air.
Hamas, the de facto government in the Gaza Strip, is an off-shoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the politico-religious organisation to which Morsi belonged. When Morsi was first returned to power a year ago, the leaders of Hamas clearly believed that they had gained an invaluable ally in their self-imposed “armed struggle” against Israel. For example, it is not generally known that in July 2012, just after Morsi came to power, Hamas was seriously considering a unilateral declaration of independence for the Gaza Strip, hoping for support from the MB Egyptian government. Arab newspapers like Al-Arabiya and Al-Hayat reported that the possibility of establishing a self-supporting Islamist Palestinian state of Gaza was seriously discussed between Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Egypt’s then-President Mohammed Morsi.
On this occasion Hamas was to be disappointed in its bid for fraternal support. Becoming complicit with Hamas was not in Egypt’s best interests – not even for a MB president. Egypt was relying on a new $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund and a $6.4 billion support package from the EU, to say nothing of a hefty package of loans and grants from the USA. So the half-baked secession plan came to nothing.
All the same MB’s accession to power in Egypt much emboldened Hamas, not only within the Gaza Strip, but in Sinai as well, an important territorial buffer between Egypt and Israel since their 1979 peace treaty.
During the summer of 2012 a number of armed attacks were launched from Sinai on Israel, and in each case support from Hamas in Gaza was suspected. In one incident two gunmen, later killed in an exchange of fire, infiltrated Israel and killed an Israeli civilian working on the construction of a border fence. Media reports indicated that the gunmen had received helped from within Gaza. When Israel responded with two air strikes into Gaza and four other militants were killed, Hamas launched medium-range rockets, mortar shells and long-range Grad-model Katyushas rockets at southern Israel.One result of Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution was to encourage armed Palestinian groups and global jihadists to penetrate the large, sparsely populated desert peninsula of Sinai, usually from the Gaza strip and supported by Hamas, and to mix with Bedouins disgruntled with the central Egyptian regime.
What followed were attacks on the pipeline transporting natural gas from Egypt to Israel and Jordan, the kidnapping of foreign tourists, and assaults against police stations. The Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), tasked with monitoring the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, also came under attack.
One major incident, occurring early in August, reflected the growing boldness of Hamas and the Islamist extremists whom Hamas supported. After killing about 15 Egyptian security personnel at a base in the border town of Rafah, the jihadists used a pickup truck filled with explosives to breach the Egypt-Israel border, then drove an armoured vehicle more than a mile into Israel before being struck by a missile fired from an Israeli military plane. Up to eight heavily armed militants were killed. A statement from the Egyptian military said 35 militants were involved and “elements from the Gaza Strip” aided the attack by firing rockets, suggesting co-ordination between Hamas and Sinai militants.
This access of bravado led Hamas to institute an unrestrained expansion of indiscriminate rocket attacks on southern Israel, until the situation became intolerable and Israel mounted its short, sharp retaliatory response – Operation Pillar of Defense. If the Hamas leadership believed that by provoking armed conflict with Israel, the MB government of Egypt would spring to their aid and involve the Middle East in another major conflict aimed at eliminating Israel, they were sadly disappointed. They did however, reap a quite unforeseen advantage from their common MB heritage with the new Egyptian government.For it was Morsi, in conjunction with the US, who engineered the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in November 2012, opening the way for Hamas’s shaky, yet triumphalist, claim of victory. For a brief time, thanks to Egypt’s brokerage, Hamas bestrode the world stage, the standard bearers of the anti-Israel “armed struggle”.With the overthrow of Morsi and the MB government in Egypt, Hamas is again experiencing the disapproval of its ill-considered militant activities that marked the previous Mubarak regime.The Gaza-Egypt border at Rafah is closed, the tunnels used for smuggling goods and weaponry out of Egypt are being blocked, and the Hamas leadership is once more out in the cold, facing opposition within Gaza from Salafists who are even more extremist than it is itself.
Hamas must be pinning its hopes on the activities of MB supporters within Egypt. On July 7 Egyptian Salafi jihad issued what it described as a “clarion call for Islamic revolution”. “Anyone who knows an advocate or a sheikh or a revolutionary,” said the statement, “should call him to urge him to mobilise.”
Since the generals ousted Morsi there has already been an upsurge in militant violence, particularly in Sinai, long a hotbed of Hamas-supported jihadist activity. Intelligence reports have warned of a build-up of weapons, some stolen from Gaddafi arms stores in Libya, some headed for Gaza but held up by the block on smugglers’ tunnels.
On the night of July 5, a group of Islamists seized the North Sinai governor’s palace in the Mediterranean town of El Arish, raising the black Islamist flag. Earlier, jihadists attacked military checkpoints, a police station and El Arish airport. Five police and a soldier were killed. On July 6, gunmen killed a Coptic Christian priest in El Arish, a sign of the sectarian tensions bubbling under the surface. Brotherhood leaders and clerics had attacked Christians for joining anti-Morsi protests, and the decision by Pope Tawadros, leader of the Coptic church, to back Morsi’s removal inflamed feelings further, even though he was joined by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University.In short, the one-time dream by the Hamas leadership of a Egypt-Gaza Muslim Brotherhood axis has faded. Armed struggle – and this time not at all confined to Israel – is once again the order of the day.

The Free Syrian Army claimed Monday that the Israel Air Force had destroyed a warehouse holding Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles east of the city of Homs in western Syria. ...In a Facebook post titled “The new Israeli strike,” the rebels alleged that “the brave Syrian regime has conceded that a new Israeli strike targeted a warehouse containing Russian S-300 missiles and launchers. The facility was located in the al-Qassia camp, near the town of al-Hafa, east of Homs.”

The post further insinuated that the attack was meant to stop the Free Syrian Army from seizing the advanced weapons system.

Another report, by Syria’s al-Haqiqa news website, claimed that “a senior Israeli official” confirmed that the explosion that destroyed an arms depot in the port city of Latakia last week was not the work of al-Qaida, as the state-run Syrian media reported, but yet another Israeli attack.

According to the report, the explosion destroyed a Syrian navy weapons depository holding Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles. The website quoted the official as allegedly saying he could “neither confirm nor deny,” whether the Israeli military was responsible for the attack.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad has purged the top ranks of the country’s ruling Baath party, dismissing 16 officials, including Vice President Farouk Ashara.

According to a statement posted on the party’s website, “The Baath Party’s Central Committee held a lengthy meeting on Monday morning … and has chosen a new national leadership.”

The website said Assad would remain the party’s secretary-general.

“The party must develop in step with reality on the ground, and promote a culture of dialogue and voluntary action by the people,” Assad told the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency. “The party needs to put in place new … criteria for the selection of party representatives, in order for them to be able to achieve [society's] objectives.”

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is scheduled to visit Russia on Tuesday for talks over Moscow’s plans to supply Assad with S-300 missiles, Army Radio reported.

Livni, who also serves as Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinians alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s envoy Yitzhak Molcho, is also scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a bid to convince Moscow not to go through with the promised delivery.

Livni’s spokeswoman confirmed she was to meet with Lavrov in Moscow but denied it was in connection with the S-300 system.

CAIRO — With its people more polarized than ever and the military once again struggling to impose calm, Egypt's downward spiral appears to have no bottom.

At least 51 people were killed Monday when army and police forces opened fire on a sit-in during morning prayers. The protesters outside Republican Guard headquarters said they were peacefully calling for the release of the Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed last week. The army said it responded to a "terror group" firing weapons and hurling Molotov cocktails.
Stunned but not deterred by the violence, the Islamists quickly called for a national uprising.
...The two sides’ differing views of the violence were a chilling suggestion of what Egypt may yet endure.
...The army's actions early Monday may also have nudged two Islamic adversaries — the Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party — closer together.
Nour, which won 25% of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections, plays a pivotal role. It sided against the Brotherhood last week and joined a coalition of secular and religious parties in favor of ousting Morsi. But it balked at the naming of prominent secularist Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister Saturday.
Facing increasing pressure from the Islamist camp after the killings, Nour withdrew from the negotiations on forming an interim government. The move is likely to consolidate Islamist forces and damage efforts to stabilize the country.
...The army increasingly has used the term "terrorism" to describe not only attacks by militants, but also in reference to clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators. The term to many Egyptians is becoming a code word for Islamists.
"The reports say that the army assaulted them while they were praying, but of course this isn't true," said Ibrahim Allaga, a 23-year-old who runs a T-shirt business. He was one of the anti-Morsi demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Monday. "This has never happened in Egyptian history, that the army would attack people while they pray. This is a rumor started by terrorist groups to get the support of the Egyptian people."
In Washington, the Obama administration ruled out, at least for now, cutting off $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt despite a federal law that requires halting assistance to countries that have overthrown elected governments with military coups.
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters that a quick cutoff of aid would be "not in the best interests of the United States." Officials suggested that using the threat of a cutoff to push the Egyptian military and other political players toward reconciliation would be more effective than imposing a punishment that could alienate the generals.
Witnesses said demonstrators near the Republican Guard headquarters, where Morsi is believed to be in detention, fled in the early-morning darkness as soldiers and security forces fired tear gas, bullets and buckshot. The dead and wounded were ferried away by motorcycles, ambulances and in the arms of relatives.
..."We did not attack protesters. We were rather defending a military facility," said Ali, the military spokesman. "They moved on us to provoke our soldiers and create this violent scene."
"There have been many acts of inciting violence and provocations and targeting public facilities for the last few days, and we have issued more than one warning," he added. "This is a law in all the world's countries. No one gets near soldiers securing a military facility."
..."What happened today is a massacre," Erian, deputy leader of the Brotherhood's political wing, said outside the field hospital. "To this chaos there is no exit unless Mohamed Morsi returns to office. There is no exit.... Our blood will overcome their weapons."
Secular opposition leaders who backed the coup responded carefully to the attack. "Violence begets violence and should be strongly condemned," tweeted ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. "Independent Investigation a must. Peaceful transition is only way."*Times staff writer Shashank Bengali and special correspondents Ingy Hassieb, Amro Hassan and Manar Mohsen contributed to this report.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to visit Israel this weekend to continue efforts to get the Palestinians at the negotiating table.

A senior Israeli official said on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of caving to Palestinian demands ahead of talks, and that his objective is clear: To renew negotiations immediately, without preconditions, with an assurance that negotiations will be held over a long period of time and will cover all the issues.

Netanyahu wants to avoid a situation whereby Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will try stepping away from the negotiating table after a few meetings and turn to the United Nations in September under the premise that Israel is to blame for the failure of the talks.

Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Avigdor Lieberman, said Saturday that the Yisrael Beytenu party (which he also chairs) will object to any Israeli concession.

"Whoever looks at the international arena understands that conditions are not yet ripe for a breakthrough," Lieberman said. "We will fight against and adamantly object to any decision regarding the release of terrorists or freezing construction."

From Barry Rubin, 8 July 2013:...A statement by two National Security Council senior staff members has revealed the inner thinking of President Barack Obama...

...First, let’s remember that in the face of advancing totalitarianism in the Middle East, U.S. policy completely failed. Imagine, if you wish, what would have happened with the Nazis without Winston Churchill and Great Britain in the 1940s. The U.S. government of this day was not only ready to leave Middle Easterners to their fate; it even sided with their actual or potential oppressors.

So who has been waging the battle meanwhile? The people of Iran and Turkey, who have not won because in part the United States failed to encourage the former and did not encourage the Turkish army to do what the Egyptian army did do; the embattled Tunisian and Lebanese anti-Islamists; the Saudis (at times) and the Persian Gulf Arabs (except for Qatar) and Jordan. Oh yes, and also Israel the most slandered and falsely reviled country on earth.Second, the Benghazi affair was the model of the Obama Administration worldview: If you allow a video insulting Muslims, four American officials will be killed. If you support the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, thousands of Americans might die. This is the result of placing not politics but counterterrorism in command.

And this leads to…Barack Obama’s Big Decision

Is President Obama going to come down on the side of the Islamist ex-regime, ...or the new regime? ...Remember that one of his last conversations with ex-President Muhammad al-Mursi, Obama told him that he still regarded him as the democratically elected president of Egypt.

Of course, Obama will have to end up recognizing the new government. The question is how much and how long he will resist that? It is pitiful to know that the best possible result is that he will accept the rulers in Cairo and continue the economic aid. In fact, he should increase it. We should not be talking punishment for the coup but in fact a rich reward, to show others which way the wind blows.Specifically, U.S. diplomats were urging a deal: a coalition government in Egypt in which the Brotherhood has part of the power. You can imagine how well that would work and how grateful the Brotherhood ...will be to Obama ...all of the Egyptian people no matter which side they are on, will see America as their enemy.And will Obama learn more lessons from this situation? Will he stop seeking to install a regime in Syria that is worse than Mursi’s? Will he increase support for the real Iranian, Turkish, and Lebanese oppositions? Will he recognize the true strategic realities of Israel and stop seeking to install a regime like Mursi’s in the territories captured by Israel in 1967 (...Hamas...)

So far though, it looks like Obama is determined to be the protector of oppressive dictatorship in Egypt.

...The Obama Administration has called on Egyptian leaders to pursue, “A transparent political process that is inclusive of all parties and groups,” including “avoiding any arbitrary arrests of Mursi and his supporters,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said July 4 in a statement.

I don’t recall such a statement being made in criticism of the Mursi regime. According to Bloomburg News, “Two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified commenting on [Obama's] private communications...said the administration is concerned that some in the military may want to provoke the violence and provide a rationale for crushing the movement once and for all.”

Then comes a critical statement that explains Obama Middle East policy. Pay close attention to this:

“Such a move would fail and probably prompt a shift to al-Qaeda type terrorist tactics by extremists in the Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere, the U.S. officials said.”

What is this saying? Remember this is a White House policy statement for all practical purposes. That if the Muslim Brotherhood or perhaps the Salafists are denied power in Muslim-majority countries they cannot be defeated but that they will be radicalized so that they will launch September 11 style attacks on America.

In other words, the United States must surrender and betray its allies or else it faces disaster.

This is called surrender and appeasement. And, besides, such a move would fail. There is a coherent Obama policy. Inquire no more, that is it.

And that’s why, for example, it wants the Turkish and Egyptian armies to accept an Islamist regime; and Syria for getting one, too; and Israel making whatever risks or concessions required to end the conflict right away no matter what the consequences. American officials say that the actually illusory demographic issue--which is simply nonsense--means that Israel better make the best deal possible now.American allies cannot win and if they try they’ll just make the Islamists angrier. The White House, it is forgotten now, even wanted to overthrow the pro-American regime in Bahrain and might have helped them replace it if the Saudis hadn't stopped them.I am not joking. I wish I were.

...Remember what the two NSC staffers said, in representing Obama policy because it deserves to go down in history:

“Such a move [fighting the Islamists in Egypt would fail and probably prompt a shift to al-Qaeda type terrorist tactics by extremists in the Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere.”The Obama administration, on the basis of the current CIA director John Brennan's Doctrine has given up the battle. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists are holding the United States for ransom. The demand for releasing (which means not attacking) the United States is the Middle East....It should be emphasized that aside from everything else, this is a ridiculous U.S. strategy because the Brotherhood and Salafists haven’t even thought of this tactic This isn't just a surrender; it's a preemptive surrender.

From comments by Tony Blair, 7 July 2013:
The events that led to the Egyptian army's removal of President Mohamed Morsi confronted the military with a simple choice: intervention or chaos. Seventeen million people on the street is not the same as an election. But it is an awesome manifestation of people power.
...The Muslim Brotherhood was unable to shift from being an opposition movement to being a government...

The economy is tanking.

Ordinary law and order has virtually disappeared.

Services aren't functioning properly.

...A few weeks back, I met the tourism minister, who I thought was excellent, with a sensible plan to revive Egypt's tourist sector. A few days ago, he resigned, when the president took the mind-boggling step of appointing as governor of Luxor (a key tourist destination) someone who was affiliated to the group responsible for Egypt's worst-ever terror attack, in Luxor, which killed more than 60 tourists in 1997.

Now the army is faced with the delicate and arduous task of steering the country back on to a path towards elections and a rapid return to democratic rule. We must hope that they can do this without further bloodshed. Meanwhile, however, someone is going to have to run things and govern. This will mean taking some very tough, even unpopular decisions. It is not going to be easy.
What is happening in Egypt is the latest example of the interplay, visible the world over, between democracy, protest and government efficacy. Democracy is a way of deciding the decision-makers, but it is not a substitute for making the decision. I remember an early conversation with some young Egyptians shortly after President Mubarak's downfall. They believed that, with democracy, problems would be solved. When I probed on the right economic policy for Egypt, they simply said that it would all be fine because now they had democracy; and, in so far as they had an economic idea, it was well to the old left of anything that had a chance of working.
I am a strong supporter of democracy. But democratic government doesn't on its own mean effective government. Today, efficacy is the challenge. When governments don't deliver, people protest. They don't want to wait for an election. In fact, as Turkey and Brazil show, they can protest even when, on any objective basis, countries have made huge progress. But as countries move from low to middle income status, the people's expectations rise. They want quality services, better housing, good infrastructure, especially transport. And they will fight against any sense that a clique at the top is barring their way.
This is a sort of free democratic spirit that operates outside the convention of democracy that elections decide the government. It is enormously fuelled by social media, itself a revolutionary phenomenon. And it moves very fast in precipitating crisis. It is not always consistent or rational. A protest is not a policy, or a placard a programme for government. But if governments don't have a clear argument with which to rebut the protest, they're in trouble.In Egypt, the government's problems were compounded by resentment at the ideology and intolerance of the Muslim Brotherhood. People felt that the Brotherhood was steadily imposing its own doctrines on everyday life. Across the Middle East, for the first time, and this is a positive development, there is open debate about the role of religion in politics.
Despite the Muslim Brotherhood's superior organisation, there is probably a majority for an intrinsically secular approach to government in the region.Society can be deeply imbued with religious observance, but people are starting to realise that democracy only works as a pluralistic concept where faiths are respected and where religion has a voice, not a veto.
For Egypt, a nation with an immense and varied civilisation, around 8 million Christians and a young population who need to be connected to the world, there isn't really a future as an Islamic state that aspires to be part of a regional caliphate.
So what should the west do?... we can't afford for Egypt to collapse. So we should engage with the new de facto power and help the new government make the changes necessary, especially on the economy, so they can deliver for the people. In that way, we can also help shape a path back to the ballot box that is designed by and for Egyptians.
As for Syria, when we contemplate the worst that can happen, we realise that it is unacceptable. We could end up with effective partition of the country, with a poor Sunni state to the east, shut out from the sea and the nation's wealth, and run by extremists. Lebanon would be totally destabilised; Iraq further destabilised; Jordan put under even greater pressure (which only the courage and leadership of the king is presently managing on behalf of all of us). And what was left for Assad to govern would be dependent on Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation, and Iran.
As for Iran, maybe the new president wishes to try to bring his country to agreement with the world on Iran's nuclear weapons ambition. Maybe he doesn't. And in any event the power is still with the ayatollah. We can't afford a nuclear-armed Iran. And we haven't even mentioned the challenges of Libya or Yemen or, further afield, Pakistan, or the plague of extremism now coursing through the northern part of sub-Saharan Africa or parts of central Asia.
Our interests demand that we are engaged. We have to take decisions for the long term because short term there are no simple solutions....

From the Washingtom Post Editorial, 8 July 2013:THE INTENSE focus of Secretary of State John F. Kerry on the long-moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process when neighboring Egypt is collapsing into chaos and Syria’s civil war rages unabated provokes more than a little head-scratching among diplomats from the Middle East. What, they ask us, could possibly possess Mr. Kerry to so intently pursue such an unpromising initiative, even as the United States refuses to exert leadership on crises of paramount importance to the region?
... Mr. Kerry’s attempt to fashion a more robust U.S. policy in Syria has been thwarted by President Obama’s refusal to countenance anything beyond symbolic help for the rebels. In Egypt, what American influence still exists is best wielded via the Pentagon, which maintains close ties with the Egyptian military.
That leaves the Israelis and Palestinians, who still are responsive to U.S. diplomacy and tend to be flattered by the concerted attentions of a figure such as Mr. Kerry. Though neither side has yet agreed to the resumption of negotiations Mr. Kerry has set as his goal, it would not be surprising if they did, eventually, if only to avoid being blamed for a failure. While the process — or even the pre-process — lasts, the Palestinian Authority is more likely to refrain from creating trouble for Israel and the United States in the United Nations. And the appearance of talks may ease some of the mounting hostility Israel is encountering in Europe.
So far, so good. But what happens when and if negotiations start?

... In 2008 Mr. Abbas rejected an offer from Mr. Netanyahu’s predecessor, including the incorporation of half of Jerusalem into a Palestinian state and the “return” of some Palestinian refugees to Israel, that Mr. Netanyahu would never accept.

Like previousfailed U.S. initiatives, Mr. Kerry’s diplomacy ignores the powerful Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, opposes a peace deal and is capable of disrupting negotiations at any time by resuming missile attacks against Israel.

Mr. Kerry banks on the support of Arab states, but two of Israel’s Arab neighbors have no functioning government, while the other two — Jordan and Lebanon — have been all but overwhelmed by the spillover of refugees and fighting from Syria.

Mr. Kerry has kept relatively quiet about his plans. We’d like to believe that he recognizes that a peace deal is not feasible now and is aiming at useful interim steps, such as the economic development plan for the West Bank he has suggested or Israel scaling back settlement construction and yielding control of more West Bank territory. Those would be achievements worth an investment of time, assuming one has written off the possibility of American leadership beyond Jerusalem and Ramallah.

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